Three women's bodies found in the sea at Brighton

[BlackTogetherAgain]

This is absolutely heartbreaking.

Why didn't anyone report three women were missing?

If it's a Channel crossing, from what I understand, it's rare that women go on the boats from France, and when they do they are pushed to the back / bottom, where the risk of being crushed is high.

If it's not a crossing, what on earth has happened?

Words can't express how evil this is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwyg508gg28t

You are much more likely to drown if you are a black person. My black friends agree with me. A lot of them can’t swim for various reasons. Obviously I’m not generalising but ignoring this fact does nobody any favours. It needs to be talked about more. Desperately sad, perhaps one got into trouble and the other two attempted to help.

@NameChangeMay2026

Wow that’s awful 😢. Poor women 💔

Danger signs, life belts and educating about the dangers of the sea is the only way to keep people safe. Its dangerous and unpredictable and there a limits to how safe it can be made. Many people vastly underestimate how quickly the tides can move x

Nah, I've never seen a beach that has been made so steep as a sea defence. Beaches everywhere have the issue, but Brighton is the only one I've seen whose solution is to put these insanely steep hills of shingle at the water's edge. I suppose it's cheaper than employing a combination of methods.

I blame the council for this. THEY'RE the ones that dump the shingle. THEY'RE the ones that create a ten-foot underwater drop. It's not a natural feature. I hope there are consequences and change.

I hear this is true, and access to pools absolutely needs to be improved. Almost twenty years of austerity has made council cuts to services like pools commonplace. I remember when I was growing up in the Seventies, Eighties, and early Nineties, the local council pools in the area were the place to go for a swim. Everyone went.

Those local pools of my youth are now horribly old, dirty, and neglected. Been slated for closure for years in some cases, so nothing gets spent on them. Many people who have even a bit of spare cash and want to swim tend to join clubs like David Lloyd.

For people who can't afford that, they either don't have a local council pool or what they do have is so grim they don't want to go, and who could blame them?

This is true, I used to love our local pool and went several times a week, and my kids learned to swim there. However since Covid it is grim, the opening hours are shit, and no matter how careful I am my towel stinks of piss when I come home. So I’ve splurged on David Lloyd.

Fair point. It does look a dangerous drop

Wow that is unbelievable

Yup.

I hope that Brighton Council comes under severe pressure to think of solutions to use in combination with shingle, so there doesn't have to be such a mountain. Along the coast they have offshore breakwaters. Whether that would work with the coast at Brighton I don't know, but I hope there's something they can do so that there doesn't have to be this crazy steepness.

The ones in my home area, Brighton and Sussex, haven't had any investment for many years, long pre-dating Covid. I went back to one about ten years ago and was shocked.

Oh, they were sisters. That feels even more tragic, that one family has been devastated in such a way.

its a hair issue, i remember reading an article about black people and the lack of swimming caps that fit,
among other things

I think unfortunately these issues with access to swimming pools for black people (and lessons) obviously goes back generations and hasn’t improved sufficiently. I guess sadly if the parents aren’t strong swimmers (due to historical issues) then they are less likely to take their children swimming so if they can’t afford lessons then they aren’t able to teach them themselves.

It’s a huge problem and there are organisations out there that are trying to improve this.

Agree with @NameChangeMay2026 that Brighton council could be held culpable here - they have created a dramatic, steep, man made shelf which is costing lives. It’s very difficult to climb up and out of there when the waves are pulling you back.

Children from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups are 3.5 times as likely to drown than their white counterparts. This really does need to be addressed by the government.

I have said this elsewhere and been shouted down for it, but here goes. My kids went to a secondary school that had an Olympic size swimming pool in the grounds. They only went swimming at Eid. Many children had that day off for the religious festival, so the rest were allowed to go swimming. The rest of the year they didn't. And there were lifeguards on duty, as the last time I said this I was advised by a person who knew nothing about the pool that this was the reason for swimming not being a regular occurrence. Every year I bought them the regulation kit, it was rarely used at school.

What is the point you’re making? I haven’t caught up with the thread

Is the point a huge demographic of the school couldn’t swim so it wasn’t safe? I wonder why they didn’t use it for lessons though? Sorry if I’ve missed the point being made.

And your point is?

I don’t follow. What is the precise point that you are making?

My point is that swimming lessons are important, if parents don't teach their children but the school can, then swimming should take place. The school didn't know how to deal with parents who they thought would object to the lessons so the very children who should be able to swim don't learn. They didn't ask parents how they could enable lessons, they just avoided it in case it caused offence. Mine could swim already and regularly went swimming at the same pool, they weren't missing out.

Do you really not understand?

Surely not an important factor in this!

Well your update is clearer. I don’t think anyone disagrees that swimming lessons are important. I just didn’t grasp your point about only swimming at Eid.

That's very concerning. That a school which has an Olympic sized pool isn't using it fully because they can't deal with the cultural sensitivities of the children they serve is pretty tragic.

It's not entirely the school's fault as they are fearful of offending. Crazy situation.

This whole thread is so grim